Andrea Dworkin - Mercy

hear them rattling around, death threats, destruction isn’t

quiet or subtle, imagine those for whom it is, safe, blessedly

safe; so in m y last minutes on this earth, perhaps, I am

remembering Rebecca who taught me freedom; I would sit

down quiet next to her, wait for her, watch her; did you ever

love a girl? I’ve loved several; loved. N ot just wanted but

loved in thought or action. Wasn’t raped by any o f them. I

mean, rape’s just a word, it doesn’t mean anything, someone

fucks you, so what? I can’t see complaining about it. But I

wasn’t hurt by any o f them. I don’t mean I w asn’t hurt by love;

shit, that’s what love does, it drags your heart over a bed o f

nails, I was hurt by love, lazy, desperate drinks through long

nights o f pain without her, hurting bad. Wasn’t pushed

around. Saw others who were. It’s not that wom en don’t. It’s

just that it had m y name on it, men said pussy or dyke or

whatever stupid distortion but I saw freedom, I heard Andrea,

I found freedom under her, wrapped around her, her lips on

me and her hands on me, in me, her thighs holding on to me;

there’s always men around waiting to break in, throw

themselves on top, pull you down; but wom en’s different, it’s

a fast, gorgeous trip out o f hell, a hundred-mile-an-hour ride

on a different road in the opposite direction, it’s when you see

an attitude that sets you free, the way she moves breaks you

out, or you touch her shoulder and exhilaration shoots

through you like a needle would do hanging from your vein if

it’s got something good in it; it’s a gold rush; your life’s telling

you that if you’re between her legs you’re free— free’s not

peaceful and not always kind, it’s fast, a shooting star you ride,

i f you’re stupid it shakes you loose and hurls you somewhere

in the sky, no gravity, no fall, just eternal drift to nowhere out

past up and down. You can live forever on the curve o f her

hip, attached there in sweat and desire taking the full measure

o f your own human sorrow; you can have this tearing sorrow

with your face pushing on the inside o f her thigh; you can have

her lips on you, her hands pushing on you as if you’re marble

she’s turning into clay, an electricity running all over you

carried in saliva and spit, you’re cosseted in electric shock,

peeing, your hair standing up on end, muscles stretched, lit

up; there’s her around you and in you everywhere, the

rhythm o f your dance and at the same time she’s like the

placenta, you breathe in her, surrounded; it’s something men

don’t know or they’d do it, they could do it, but instead they

want this push, shove, whatever it is they’re doing for

whatever reason, it’s an ignorant meanness, but with a woman

you ’re whole and you’re free, it ain’t pieces o f you flying

around like shit, it ain’t being used up, you got scars bigger

than the freedom you get in everyday life; do it the w ay you ’re

supposed to, you got twenty-four hours a day down on your

knees sucking dick; that’s how girls do hard time. There’s not

many women around who have any freedom in them let alone

some to spare, extravagant, on you, and it’s when they’re on

you you see it best and know it’s real, now and all, there w o n ’t

be anything wilder or finer, it’s pure and true, you see it, you

chase them, they’re on you, you get enraptured in it, once you

got it on you, once you feel it m oving through you, it’s a

contagion o f wanting more than you get being pussy for the

boys, you catch it like a fever, it puts you on a slow bum with

your skin aching and you want it more than you can find it

because most women are beggars and slaves in spirit and in life

and you don’t ever give up wanting it. Otherwise you get

worn down to what they say you are, you get worn down to

pussy, bedraggled; not bewitched, bothered, bewildered; ju st

some wet, ratty, bedraggled thing, semen caked on you, his

piss running down your legs, worn out, old from what yo u ’re

sucking, I’m pretty fucking old and I have been loved by

freedom and I have loved freedom back. Did you ever have a

nightmare? Men coming in’s m y nightmare; entering; I’m in,

knock, knock. There’s writers being assholes about outlaws;

outlaw this, outlaw that, I’m bad, I’m sitting here writing m y

book and I’m bad, I’m typing and I’m bad, m y secretary’s

typing and I’m bad, I got laid, the boys say, like their novels

are letters home to mama, well, hell’s bells, the boys got laid:

more than once. It’s something to write home about, all right;

costs fifty bucks, too; they found dirty wom en they did it to,

dirty women too fucking poor to have a typewriter to stu ff up

bad boy w riter’s ass. Shit. Y ou follow his cock around the big,

bad city: N ew Y ork, Paris, Rom e— same city, same cock.

B ig, bad cock. Wiping themselves on dirty women, then

writing home to mama by w ay o f G rove Press, saying what

trash the dirty women are; how brave the bad boys are,

writing about it, doing it, putting their cocks in the big, bad,

dirty hole where all the other big, brave boys were; oh they say

dirty words about dirty women good. I read the books. I had a

typewriter but it was stolen when the men broke in. The men

broke in before when I w asn’t here and they took everything,

my clothes, my typewriter. I wrote stories. Some were about

life on other planets; I wrote once about a wild woman on a

rock on Mars. I described the rock, the red planet, barren, and

a woman with tangled hair, big, with muscles, sort o f Ursula

Andress on a rock. I couldn’t think o f what happened though.

She was just there alone. I loved it. Never wanted it to end. I

wrote about the country a lot, pastoral stuff, peaceful, I made

up stories about the wind blowing through the trees and leaves

falling and turning red. I wrote stories about teenagers feeling

angst, not the ones I knew but regular ones with stereos. I

couldn’t think o f details though. I wrote about men and

women making love. I made it up; or took it from Nino, a boy

I knew, except I made it real nice; as he said it would be; I left

out the knife. The men writers make it as nasty as they can, it’s

like they’re using a machine gun on her; they type with their

fucking cocks— as Mailer admitted, right? Except he said

balls, always a romancer. I can’t think o f getting a new